


Reflection

by JanuaryBlue



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ascians (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Gen, Graphic discussions of lore, Lahabrea does not appear but is mentioned, My own personal idea of flirting, Other, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, The Pronoun Game (With Capitalization!), WoL's appearance is not ambiguous, discussions of mortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 15:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20066017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanuaryBlue/pseuds/JanuaryBlue
Summary: Emet-Selch is surprisingly good company. And very interesting, besides.You sit down with an Ascian, and find you have much to talk about.





	Reflection

“Is that a… cherry?”

Emet-Selch looks at you with all the dubiousness in his eyes that one might expect from a millennia-old immortal being eating fruit from a bowl who had been asked what he was eating.

He does not answer, only lounges back and takes more in his hands. You see him bite one of the tiny fruits in half, brushing away the pit to fall into the ground.

So they are cherries, but… you squint at them, only causing him to stare at you with more dry amusement. They’re brighter, _lighter _than any cherries you’d ever seen. Some of them are red, certainly, but it is a bright red upon orange and yellow; naught like the fruit you’d known on the Source with coloring like dark red wine.

“Oh, do stop staring and _come over _already_._” Says Emet-Selch, with a sigh in his voice that is not a sigh; you can see in his glinting eyes that his intentions aren’t entirely innocuous. “Try some.”

You squint harder. “Where did you get them?”

“Where do you _think, _hero?” He rolls his eyes, popping another into his mouth, delicately tugging the pit from his teeth with – huh, he’d taken off his gloves.

Cherries came from trees; such a precious, cultivated fruit as that. There is one place in particular that would have such luxuries.

“Eulmore?” He had mentioned siding with Vauthry some time ago.

And come to think of it, he was an _Ascian. _In their natural form they were invisible to most, and even possessing a host, who would recognize him? And if they did, he could simply change his appearance.

He once again does not deign to answer, only sits back against the tree, cherries in hand, and waits. Expectant gaze heavy on your shoulders.

…Does he really mean to share?

You approach cautiously, and not without consequence. He scoffs at your hesitance, reaching out and curling a hand at you impatiently.

Still, once you get there, you stop. He looks up at you and still, somehow, it feels like he is looking down on you.

“What is it now? Struck dumb by my unending generosity?” His tone tells you _exactly _what he thinks of your silence. “I offer up such a pleasant delicacy, the one good thing the Light has done in these wretched lands, and you spoil it with your distrust?”

A good thing the Light had done? Cherries, of all things?

Bright, yellow and orange merely dusted with red; he must mean that this, too, is a product of the abundance of Light. That… almost made sense, actually. The Light had touched everything else in these lands, from the animal sin eaters, to the sky, so it would have spread to the food as well. Not in the way of Eulmore’s strange ‘meol’ – you don’t doubt that the Ascain would _never _eat such a thing – though, that did not mean they were all safe to eat.

Emet-Selch probably wouldn’t rely on such a thing to defeat you, especially not when he could be thwarted by simple refusal. But it would be an absolute disgrace to die having accepted poisoned food from an Ascian. That would just be pathetic.

So you shake your head, and almost turn to leave when you feel the shock of bare skin against yours. His hand wrapped around your wrist, pale skin bright against a pitch black arm. The warm, varied light of the greatwood did his complexion wonders; in other lights, he might look deathly pale.

There’s little you can do before he yanks you down. With an adventurer’s grace you land mostly well, legs on either side of him, the hand he hadn’t grabbed steadying yourself against the ground.

Now you’re face to face, able to return his stare with appropriate incredulity.

A _tsk _leaves him as Emet-Selch tilts his head back and pops another cherry in his mouth – only to bite off a half of it, holding out the rest to you.

You blink.

“Proof enough this is untainted, yes?” His fingers move ever closer to your lips with the tiny bit of fruit remaining. “Hero, I am _waiting. _Would you like some or not?”

At this point he’s nearly pressing it against your mouth. It’s so sweet you can smell it, you can almost taste it without it ever touching your tongue.

As soon as you open your mouth to answer he pops the cherry in, or the remaining half of it.

…In retrospect, it isn’t very surprising. Going right ahead without hesitation as soon as he decides he should be able to. It’s just the sort of thing you’d expect from him. 

“Well?” You’re pulled from your thoughts by his drawled question, his eyes boring holes into you.

You bite down on it, and instantly your suspicions are confirmed. It’s sweet, sweeter than any cherry you’d ever tasted. Not like pure sugar on your tongue, but close. Just sweet enough not to be sickening. Bright and fruity on your tongue but with a distinct lack of tang or sourness; sweetness alone carried the taste.

There are plenty left in the bowl. He has brought them with intentions of sharing, it seems.

A hand on your chin tugs you forward.

“Come now, sit down.” His hands lift up to your sides, then down to lay on your hips.

Pulling you down, Emet-Selch sits you on his lap, your legs on either side of him. It’s warm, and his robe is clearly made of fine, soft material. Which he somehow does not mind dirtying in the least.

A smile blooms on your face as amusement does in your chest. For a Garlean, he is remarkably… small. And even the average Garlean was barely taller than you. His eyes are just about level with your shoulder.

Taking hold of his chin just as he had yours – goodness, he _is _pale, he looks paler still with your dark fingers on his cheek, and your skin looks like pure midnight against his own. You tilt his face up and return his leering smirk.

“My eyes are up here.” You let your hand fall away; he is _quite _willing to meet your eyes.

What a lovely, brilliant gold. Lustrous and metallic where the Light above only glowed in gentle, unending radiance.

He does not break contact, does not glare, only tilts his head very slightly to the side. A hint of a quirk on his lips, the barest suggestion of a smile.

“I do _see _that.” He says, lashes lowering imperceptibly, shadowing his eyes.

Another cherry is pressed to your lips, soft and insistent. You only look at him with dry suspicion.

“Oh, such doubt! You wound me, hero, you really do.”

You lean away to speak without getting a mouthful of potentially poisoned fruit. “Fatally, I should hope.”

“How mean-spirited,” Emet-Selch shakes his head ever so slightly, biting at the cherry himself, “And after all my displays of generous spirit.”

“I know. However will you recover? Your heart can’t take this much longer, I’m sure.”

Reaching out, he presses the rest of the fruit to your lips, insistent enough that the juice pools between them and the hint of the taste has you opening to accept the demanding offering.

“What my heart cannot take is your vehement denial.” He says, his teasing tone growing almost listless, the pressure on your lips slowly letting away.

You open up, leaning just a bit forward to take it into your mouth. Sweetness blooms on your tongue, a vibrant taste ripe with decadence.

“I didn’t see any of these in Eulmore,” You admit, eyeing the bowl of small, exotic fruit.

Emet-Selch doesn’t seem the least bit surprised, as he pops another cherry into his mouth. “Of course you didn’t. They are a rare delight even for those privileged creatures. You would not _believe _the searching it took to track them down. And to have you refuse me so coldly!”

Track them down, did he? Emet-Selch, running around, asking the people of Eulmore where he might find this certain variety of cherries, growing more and more sarcastic and frustrated with each response. Having no solution but to ask about even more… the thought of it brings a smile to your face.

“And how did you finally get a hold of them? Did Vauthry help you?”

A scoff. “How very little you must think of me. Nay, I acquired them through my own means, hero.”

“So you stole them.”

Fixing you with a cynical stare, Emet-Selch retorts, “My, you _do _think little of me.”

He… paid for them? It’s not as though he would have wanted for wealth, being the founder of Garlemald, but here on the First, he is no one.

“Even if you found the money somehow, I can’t see anyone in Eulmore parting with a special treat like this for something they already have.”

The quirk of his lips matches the twinkle in his eyes, a wicked, gleaming yellow. “Quite. When I encountered the woman who had obtained the fruits she was most unwilling to hand them over. I came to her and pled my case, offered her much and more besides, but she would have none of it.”

“So you _did _steal them.”

“How could I have?” Emet-Selch gives you a mischievous smirk. “The bowl was right in front of her the entire time. She was loath to part with it, you see. Seizing it then and there and disappearing – _well. _That would have caused quite an upset in peaceful Eulmore, and for such an inane reason, too.”

And he _did it. _Just for some cherries. They were delicious, certainly, but… “Unbelievable. Do you have any self-control at all?”

“She would not have told you so. When I swore to her that I would take them, by force if I needed to, she was quite upset, and had me escorted away. By armed guards no less.”

That… isn’t what you’d expect to hear. Emet-Selch being escorted away like so much rabble – not at all the sort of thing you could imagine happening to him. But clearly it worked out somehow, because he _got _them.

“Even so, those threats had her _ever _so worried,” The glint in his eyes _radiates _self-satisfaction. “Even after I left, she couldn’t stop thinking that the moment she started eating them, I would come out and assault her. So worried was she that she entrusted the cherries to her most loyal and precious manservant, until she could be certain the vagrant who’d threatened her was no longer at large.”

You blink.

“Then you possessed him?”

“Of course not. That would be far too much effort. I merely changed my appearance to mimic his, and acquired some suitable garments to go along with it. I’ll have you know I am quite the gifted actor, when the occasion calls for it.”

Then he’d had to have taken care of the real manservant beforehand, planned the whole thing out in advance. He hadn’t expected her to let him have the cherries willingly at all, and planned for it accordingly. _Ascians._

“What a trick.” You can’t even be mad. Such a clever little scheme, despite the malice; and no one had been harmed, besides. As it should have been. They’re only cherries, after all. “You are quite the manipulator, it seems.”

“Now, now,” Emet-Selch tuts, but his features are bright with a barely concealed satisfaction, “It is most dangerous to give such compliments without due cause. The recipient may feel bashful and undeserving, and want to do something truly worthy of your praise.”

“Bashful? You?” You’d pay to see it. In more ways than one.

“It’s been known to happen. Once every millennium or so.”

“Still,” You muse, “It was silly of her. To get so worked up over a bowl of cherries; she could have just eaten them.”

“Mortals.” He says, dismissive.

You reach out to cup his face in your hand. Feeling out the hollows of his cheeks, the smooth, cool skin. Almost ethereal in the light, even as his eyes shone vibrantly in it.

“Tired of me looking down on you?” You quip, leaning in so your chests almost touch, wrapping your arms about him.

Brilliant golden eyes blink at you, his arms raise up almost as though he means to snap his fingers, but you move before he gets the chance.

Lifting him up, you spin around, reversing your positions; sitting against the tree yourself while settling the Ascian on your lap. He’s just tall enough to be about face to face with you, maybe a little bit above.

“There, that suits your attitude much better.” Would it be poor taste to call him _princess? _It wouldn’t be nice to tease him too much, he _had_ shared with you.

His arms are on either side of you at once, leaning in close, towering over you now that you sat below him. His smoothly angled face catching shadows as he tilted his head down, so pretty, even in the darkness.

“It does, yes.” Emet-Selch says, his breath soft against your face. Staring at you with half-lidded, lurid eyes.

When he opens his mouth to say something more, you shove in a cherry. Fair is fair, after all.

“Thank you for sharing. They’re very good.”

Emet-Selch, to his credit, is completely nonplussed. “But of course. That is what I came here to do, after all.”

He must mean his story; his little tale he’d woven about Zodiark, and Hydaelyn. _Primals. _

There’s far more left for you to do to save this world. And more also, you suspect, to discover from him. Assuming he has not yet told all the tales he wishes you to hear.

It’s not too unlikely; from how he’s settled back on your lap just now, that pleased smile he gives you that somehow looks not one bit innocent and entirely blameless all at once, he can’t be finished talking.

“And how has my other gift pleased you? Knowledge so lost to time that you would never have come to it without my timely instruction?” Emet-Selch asks, but he does not sound like he is asking.

Rather, he seems to already have an idea of what he will hear. Or what he wants to hear.

It really does come down to honesty – whether or not his words were true. He is an Ascian, and their kind lie as naturally as they breathe, but – he had _told _you he was an Ascian. Given you his name, Emet-Selch, right away, as well as his aliases. Made plain his intentions, the goal you already knew he had, and only elaborated on _why. _

…And all the same, he’d founded the Garlean Empire. He is – he was – _Solus zos Galvus, _the very same man who was responsible for the Meteor Project. For the fall of Dalamud and the Seventh Umbral Calamity. He is directly responsible for it, for all the deaths that followed, and Emet-Selch is sitting on your lap, eating cherries with you, asking you if you believe him.

And the worst part is? You do.

Why would he lie? Certainly, there could be some contrived scheme behind it, but it would have to be a much longer game of manipulation than the others suspect. None of your goals had changed because of anything he said, and nor did he seem the slightest bit interested in changing anyone’s mind. 

As always, the Ascian’s true intentions are elusive. Even now that you know more about his past, knowing what exactly he’s thinking is impossible. But to discount everything he’s said so far…

It doesn’t feel wrong to distrust _him, _exactly. It just feels wrong to distrust the story – his story.

Perhaps it’s the mark of a great liar. Only time will tell.

“Yes, I appreciate it.” You say finally.

Emet-Selch of course takes note of the pause; it was never in doubt that he would notice. But so what? Let him notice. There wasn’t anything wrong with thinking about your response.

…Or perhaps not, with that new gleam in his eyes.

“Good.” His gaze is fixed on you, heavy. Lips lifted, eyes twinkling, as though with amusement from some joke to which you are not privy.

“Should you like to hear more,” Emet-Selch picks up another cherry, holding it out to you, “I may just be willing to entertain more of your questions, being in such an amiable mood.”

Unexpectedly as you lean in to eat it, he jerks his hand back, causing you to only take out a bite from it. With a satisfied smile, he pops the rest into his mouth, the bastard.

“Are _all _Ascians so gluttonous or has Vauthry just influenced you?” He didn’t have to snatch it away like that.

Your annoyance only seems to amuse him. Emet-Selch picks up another, making no attempt to feign feeding you this time.

“Hardly. Although I suppose there are different standards for my people.”

“Different standards?”

Emet-Selch smiles a mysterious smile. What’s so funny? That’s the real secret here; what is this joke that has him so amused, that he isn’t even hinting at?

“Indeed.”

A snort of disdain from you does nothing to dull his smile. He seems content to sit on your lap, eating cherries, offering you one every so often, leaving you in suspense as to if he’ll ever pull away.

“So you claim that if I were to ask Hydaelyn…” No need to tell him that this might not be possible at all, She hadn’t spoken to you in what felt like forever, “She would tell me a different story?”

“Yes, most like. Her ilk always did see things _differently _from the rest of us.” The snide malice in his tone is unmistakable. But it still seemed well worth asking.

“What would She say?”

Pausing, a cherry halfway to his mouth, Emet-Selch tilts his head back, eyes narrowing. “Do you honestly believe I would be willing to make the case for my enemy? The one _responsible _for the Great Sundering, besides?”

“If you can predict accurately what _She _would say, and She says it, that does lend credence to the idea that you’re telling the truth.”

Emet-Selch pauses for a moment, brows raising, eyes widening ever so minutely as true surprise flits across his face.

It’s hard to admit, but he has probably seen you as someone a bit… less intelligent, this whole time. Well, it’s never too late to learn.

When his expression falls back into causal wit, it’s clear he means to indulge you.

“Very well.” Emet-Selch changes to a dramatic, low intonation, mocking in its false soberness, “Ah, my beloved child, my scepter of light, faithful weapon by which I project my will unto the world and its ignorant inhabitants-”

“Hydealyn does _not _talk like that,” You say, laughter clear in your voice.

Another cherry goes to his mouth; the bowl can’t have that many left anymore. “She doesn’t? Are you certain?”

“Very much so.”

“Is that what you believe? Until recently you knew naught at all of Her _true _nature.” He lectures with no great deal of condescension, but the inkling of it is still there.

“I _have _spoken to Her, you know.”

“And you still hadn’t figured it out by now! For shame!” You snatch the next cherry from his hands and eat it yourself. “Ah, I was wondering when you would get impatient.”

Does he mean about Hydaelyn, or…?

“I did tell you they were good.” Dripping with smugness, Emet-Selch gives you a teasing look, “Shall I collect more for another time? I shall admit, I might enjoy doing this again.”

“If you answer my question, you may.”

A _tsk, _and suddenly his weight is off your legs. You feel a presence to your side; Emet-Selch had seen fit to sit beside you, back to the tree, foregoing the throne of your lap.

“I may, if I answer your question? Truly, your generosity knows no bounds. I offer you exotic fruit, satisfy your curiosities, rescue your friend from certain death, and you are even willing to allow me the opportunity to do so _again. _I can but weep in gratitude.” What _actually _knows no bounds here is his capacity for melodrama.

“You are _not _crying.”

“On the inside, then.” 

“Well, don’t start now. You haven’t satisfied me yet.” As soon as the words leave your lips, you wonder if they aren’t a bit – no. It’s said already, no point worrying over it.

Beside you, Emet-Selch seems to have taken to his own thoughts.

His hair rustles as he leans back against the tree, glinting a vibrant violet as it catches the light, looking as soft and smooth as the finest of fabrics. Gold eyes meet your own with surprising blankness. The glint gone from them, his expression neutral.

“What Hydaelyn would claim…” There is a strange thoughtfulness to his tone; not unlike the wistful lilt you’d heard from him as he first recounted the story of Zodiark and Hydaelyn’s summoning, by the cave paintings.

And still, he says the Mothercrystal’s name with the same spiteful malevolence you had heard from every Ascian. Even now you can almost remember Lahabrea’s words in the Praetorium, so long ago – _“Oh, **Hydaelyn**.” _– so utterly hateful and filled with mockery.

Long has it been since you last felt Her presence, let alone spoke to Her. And somehow, it’s still Her Blessing that’s allowing you to fight for this world.

“Here, I’ll help,” Shuffling a bit to brush his shoulder, bring him back to the topic, you say, “Start from the beginning, and just pretend _you’re _Hydaelyn.”

Emet-Selch makes a face no one would expect from a being that claimed to be thousands – tens of thousands, mayhap even more – of years old.

“She was not _there _for the beginning, were you not paying attention?” His chide is delivered with little bite behind it, more like an absentminded reminder than anything else.

“Of course I was. Otherwise, how would I know to ask?”

“Hmph. Mayhap you heard the major points, but had not the presence of mind to retain the details.” You don’t rise to the bait; he promised answers, and he would give them.

“Details you seem determined to keep to yourself! Come now. Recount things as She would remember it, then, what _She _thinks happened. It should be easy enough,” You bump your shoulder to his, nudging playfully, “I heard you were quite fond of acting.”

“_Theatre, _sweet hero. I was a patron of the arts.”

“Theatres have actors.”

“Plays have actors. Theatres are buildings.” Just as frustration bubbles up, you catch his smile from the side of him. The impossible man.

“That contain _actors_.”

“It is the art of performing plays, rather.” _Impossible._ Ah, but really, that’s half the fun of it.

“Plays… that have actors, yes?”

Emet-Selch turns to meet your eyes, the laughter spilling from his lips. His eyes bright in the sunlight, golden like honey; like the cherries.

“Even so.” He closes his eyes, tilting his head back.

In silence, you wait. Glancing only for a moment at the bowl of fruit – only a handful remained.

“She would start, I imagine, with our decision…”

The ‘our’ has an interesting implication to it. Before, Emet-Selch had spoken of it rather passively, saying only that ‘through prayer and sacrifice’ Zodiark was summoned. Now, _he _did it. Or rather, him and some others.

“Whose decision? Yours, and the other Ascians?” It’s easy enough to draw the connection but given that his story implied he and his fellows were only _survivors _of the Sundering, he could just be speaking of ‘us’ as in his race as a whole.

“Indeed. All of us you have come to know and love,” You snort. Predictably, it only spurs him on, “Lahabrea was the speaker. Elidibus, our lovely emissary.”

That wins a short chuckle from you. Emissary indeed. “The tens of thousands of years have dulled his touch, it seems.”

Emet-Selch hides it well, but his eyes are laughing.

“Perhaps. Now, if you would kindly refrain from interrupting me…”

“My sincerest apologies. The floor is yours.”

“So it is.” He retains an Emperor’s haughtiness, but at the same time his words come across… clean, direct, as though he is merely stating the facts. The truth. “Where was I?”

As if he would lose track. He knows exactly where he is.

“Your decision – yours, and the other Ascians.”

“Ah, yes. We were called the Convocation. Fourteen of us in all. The best and brightest of our society; it was only natural we would be expected to come up with a solution to the impending disaster.”

So he and his fellows were a part of some ruling body… it made sense. They had a certain arrogance about them; it would of course be possible for them to have it otherwise, but the authority, their confidence that their plans were absolute. And perhaps their positions as leaders had afforded them some special protection that kept them from ‘forgetting’, as Emet-Selch had despaired of, after the Sundering.

“Hydaelyn is not a fool, nor is She as ignorant as She likes to keep Her Champions.” Are you supposed to defend Her here? She hadn’t told you this, had said naught of Her true nature as a primal, but She’d admitted to causing the Sundering.

She – She wouldn’t even speak to you, now. Wouldn’t speak to anyone. Be it because of weakness, or something else, there’s no way of knowing. Ignorant, indeed.

Emet-Selch eyes you and continues.

“Certainly, She is aware that His summoning was necessary. That there was naught else we could do for it, and even had there been another solution, we had naught the time to come up with it. No, She would not bother to distort the truth of how it began. Although, I cannot imagine She would ever tell you of Her own volition. You’d be better off not knowing, in Her eyes – spared the grief, the responsibility. The _choice._”

“Better off not knowing _what?_” He teases, the bastard. Hints and elaborates on all the wrong things. _Get to the point already. _

There is a quirk to the corner of his lips that tells you he’s caught on to your impatience.

“She would tell you that Zodiark grew… hm, how _would _she put it? Power-hungry? Mad with bloodlust? Perhaps She would have said He grew ambitious beyond His station.”

Now he came to the heart of the matter. How She would have contradicted his story. If She could speak at all.

Best not to tell Emet-Selch that She’d already said as much.

“She would not admit that it was us; the very people of the race that had summoned Her, that _we _had asked Him to exert Himself, and that is why He wished to become stronger.”

‘We’ – he means the Convocation, though. He would have to. ‘We natives of that sundered paradise’ – it’s easy to see through. The Convocation summoned Zodiark, and later on other people – other ‘Ascians’ – decided that Zodiark was too powerful, or they were afraid, and they summoned Hydaelyn in retaliation.

…They aren’t contradictory accounts.

It’s possible that both tales are true. Hydaelyn claimed that Zodiark longed for power. It’s completely possible that He _did, _and that Emet-Selch’s claims that He had saved the Ascians were also true. “A mighty savior, deserving of reverence and gratitude.” It was easy to want more power when there were people you wanted to save.

Hydaelyn wanted to save people, too. That’s why She came to the first. And eventually, why you came.

“She would say that at first, She meant to make peace with Him. After all,” Emet-Selch’s voice grew bitter, _so bitter, _grating and painful to hear, like the great tree’s bark against your hair, “She was summoned by the same people whom Zodiark had saved.”

“You don’t think She really did want peace?”

There’s a laugh in the air that you know is not your own, but neither do you recognize it as something you’ve heard from Emet-Selch. It’s loud, and low, and it doesn’t sound quite like something a human should be able to make.

“She would tell you that, and mayhap She would even believe it. But you must know as well as I; even for a being such as Her, She was formed by the will, the intentions of those who summoned Her. And they feared Him beyond all reason.”

_“And so they fought, and they fought, and they fought…” _How long had that war gone on?

Emet-Selch – Elidibus, Lahabrea, and the other Ascians, they would have been there for it. Maybe even – no, definitely a part of the fighting. They were the ones who’d summoned Zodiark, of course they would have defended Him.

…Against the people they had summoned Him to protect. _He _would have fought against the people He was created to protect.

“Oh, did they fear Him…” Reverence, now, as Emet-Selch opens his eyes to stare into the empty air, narrowing in the light filtering through the leaves. “He was magnificent, our god. The cool, gentle darkness of a summer night; the delicious relief of shade upon skin bared to the sun for far too long. His power as all-encompassing as the dark itself; the absence of light in any capacity, infinite as the void.”

He does not move as he speaks, only looks forward, unblinking. Unfaltering.

“In our _darkest _hour,” The word drips with irony for but a moment until that reverent awe returns, “In the hour of our greatest need, He came. Our world was dying, breaking apart at the seams, unraveling in ways we could scarce understand, let alone speculate the cause of; the end seemed all but assured, our last hope little more than a dying gasp, and _He came._”

“He came for us,” Emet-Selch says, softly. “He came for us when we called, sheltered us in His shadow as the world was remade according to His will. We watched Him weave the fabric of reality as we had woven aether to the arts of creation; the world around us blended in colors and shapes until all was blessedly dark.”

That tone…

It should not be surprising, but it is. The Ascians have always been like this about their god, always thoughtlessly devoted, seemingly having no other purpose than serving Him. It should not be surprising, and yet to hear Emet-Selch praise Him so –

It’s wrong. To think of Emet-Selch and the rest of them as ignorant and helpless as the beast tribes enthralled to the gods they had summoned, to think of them as the Knights of the Round, as the Kojin and their all-too-sacred relics. This cannot be so; the Ascians are _not _like this. They are the manipulators, the masterminds, the ones who bend the others to their will.

Not the ones whose wills are bent.

Even now, it feels _wrong. _Emet-Selch, the lucid, perpetually scheming, clever-tongued commentator and observer… and the fervent worshipper of this broken god, so clearly caught up in His thrall.

“He saved us. And _still…_” Now he glances at you from the corner of his eyes, “_Still, _they feared Him. After He had done nothing but grant our wishes as He had been summoned to do.”

So that is the point of contention. Why the war started. The war which had resulted in the Sundering; the thing the Ascians loathed the most.

“When She was summoned, She did not waste a moment before setting Her wretched Light upon the world. She loosed Her power and bid Him forestall any plans to restore our people. She insisted that our reverence for Him was unearned, that He was _unworthy _of it. Were She to tell the tale, She would paint Him as the villain and aggressor, just as She has done of us.”

To think of what the Light had done to the First, and what its projected effects were to be on the Source… Stasis, the halting of the flow of energy, stagnation and uniformity. She set the Light upon the world back then, of Her own volition? The world the ancient Ascians lived in? _Hydaelyn?_

The doubt must show on your face, or otherwise it is plain to Emet-Selch, because his lips curl in a bitter sneer. “Ah. Shall I hazard a guess the cause of that consternation upon your brow?”

You fall silent. Even as he seethes beside you, you say nothing.

“You do not believe Hydaelyn capable of such malevolence, yes?”

There’s nothing to say. However much he made it sound like a question…

“Perhaps that too is why you doubt Him. Because you have not met Him; because you have heard of Him only from His greatest enemy, and then, from His most devoted servants.”

“That is very good reason not to believe anything you say about Him, yes.” You try not to sound dismissive – to let the fact speak for itself.

“Would that you treat Her words with such indifferent logic.”

“Fair.” You say, and at once Emet-Selch turns to you, the force of his gaze complete and heavy in the sunlight.

“What is that?” You’d expected smugness; there is none. His arms are lax, folded in his lap, lips set into a neutral line. A fine veneer of indifference, but his eyes betray him.

He must have thought you truly narrow-minded. Or tempered by Hydaelyn, come to think of it.

“Hydaelyn has been an ally to me before, but so have you.” You meet his gaze without a trace of deception. He’d spoken freely of his history and his people; it’s only fair to return his honesty. “It’s true that your Empire caused the Seventh Umbral Calamity, and no end of hardship on my part since.”

Emet-Selch looks like he’s about to say something there, interrupt with doubtless another condemnation for man, for his own Empire. For the people who followed him. But he does not.

“But since _meeting me…_” It feels silly now to say aloud. Looking back on it, Thancred’s disdain makes perfect sense, because of what Solus had done.

…But not because of what _Emet-Selch _had done. The Ascian who had come to you bearing no mask, and only his true name to call.

“You saved Y’shtola’s life. And you’ve told me more about…” You gesture helplessly towards everywhere and nowhere all at once, “All of _this, _than anyone else. Even Hydaelyn, even Elidibus, the so-called Emissary.”

As much as Emet-Selch saw you as yet to prove yourself, he _does _offer answers, he _does _entertain your questions, even with the guise of condescension. He did not disappear without a word – quite the opposite, in fact – he did not hide his motives behind such vague excuses as ‘balance’, without explanation. He did not deride you as his enemy outright, judge you unfit and do battle with you as his fellows had before.

It's unfair, to have to prove yourself _once again _after all you’ve done. But at least the chance is afforded to you, and the rules of the game laid out clearly, though the prize for victory less so.

And in the meantime, the cherries really _are _delicious. You find yourself eyeing the bowl as Emet-Selch lets out a chuckle.

“What a naïve soul you are, trusting me with the knowledge of my deeds lingering so in your mind.” Gold gleams at you as he leans back, tilting his head towards you, chin near brushing your shoulders.

“If I didn’t trust you, you’d complain that I was narrow-minded, that I wouldn’t ‘see beyond the unscrupulous villains’ I take you for,” You shoot back without missing a beat, holding his stare without hesitation, “And if I do, you complain that I’m naïve?”

You lean towards him to meet his eyes on level, his face mere ilms away. Close enough that you could see the shadows lingering about his eyes.

“You’re the naïve one,” You say to him, softly. “What do I have to _lose _from this exchange? If I anger you and we become enemies, then we would have become enemies anyways. In any other case, I stand only to gain. It is you who has approached me, innocently thinking I would not slay an Ascian on the spot.”

Something unnamable, beautiful, dances in those eyes; bright yellow and faded gold, shadowed darkly even as they seemingly _glow._

Emet-Selch faces forward, and then you realize he’s not facing forward at all, but picking up another cherry. He straightens himself against the tree, shuffling minutely, his back laid flat against it.

“Naïve, am I? I shall have to mark this occasion.” You tear yourself from your eyes for but a moment to notice; he is smiling, fully, “Congratulations, hero.”

You squint. Had he always been so… tall? He’s still shorter than you, but…

“This is the first time in my life anyone’s ever called me _that._” He lifts a cherry to his lips, biting it in half, and holds out the rest to you.

The first time in his _life? _He has to be millennia – over twelve thousand years old, if Hydaelyn’s timeline is correct. At a _minimum. _If the war before the Sundering had gone on as long as he suggested – and being an immortal, it might be _quite _long – and then before that, Emet-Selch had been a leader of a society of immortal Ascians.

Just how old _is _he?

“Continue the story.” You say, and then open your mouth for the fruit.

Lowering his head, Emet-Selch grants you an impish smile, brows quirked in amusement.

“As you command.” He places it in your mouth gently, and then harder, pressing his fingertips into your lips.

Without hesitation you open your lips wider, twist your tongue through his fingers around the cherry and slip it in before pulling away. Emet-Selch laughs to himself as he draws back his hand.

“The rest is perhaps as you were familiar with. Hydaelyn waged war against Him, Light against Dark, forever opposed, desperately seeking to negate each other’s existence. Until finally that fateful day arrived. As I said, She would not deny the Sundering, I do not suspect; only insist that it was necessary. How intentional it was on Her part, only She could say. I would expect Her to claim the Sundering of the world was an accident, and perhaps it was. The Sundering which tore apart the Will that we had created for our star, and with it, our world itself. Our people. Everyone and everything we knew, shattered in an instant, only faint and fading reminders left behind…”

The malice is there, in his voice, but becomes subdued as he recounts his loss, yielding to the grief and sorrow coating his words as easily as you had parted skies of everlasting Light to make way for the night’s return.

Hydaelyn had admitted to causing the Sundering, but She made it sound as though She’d only meant to seal Him away, not to break Him. The way She claimed to have ‘banished’ him, and then vaguely referenced the other worlds as ‘reflections’, it all sounded very unintentional on Her part. She’d make no mention of the war, of starting the war, or of anything else that happened during it.

In fact, She had once spoken of a time where ‘Light and Dark dwelled as one’ – mayhap how their respective summoners had belonged to the same people? Asking might only prompt more malice.

“Reminders like what? Like the cave paintings?”

The dark shadows that haunted his eyes seemed to darken, brows straightening into tight angles.

“Perhaps you mistake what happened. It was a characteristic of Her power.” Finally he turns away, breaking your gaze, closing his eyes once more. Tilting his head down enough to stare straight at the ground. “To divide things not in physicality, but by their aether, their very existences. On the surface, the world had not changed so much; the cities and structures and landscapes were all still there. There was less aether in the air, in the land, but on the surface it was identical… But the _people…_”

Emet-Selch had said that the worst part was that no one could remember. That all they had left were fleeting memories, little bits – fragments. You move closer to him – or as much closer you can manage, being shoulder-to-shoulder – but he does not look at you.

“The _people _were… different.”

The note of sorrow in his tone rings true, with the same somber mournfulness as everything else he’s said. Now would be the time to console him, to share your own experiences in return. To ask another question, divert the topic, do anything but sit here in silence.

No words form in your mind. The sounds of the forest seem quiet until they’re all you hear; does he not even need to _breathe? _

...Upon further consideration, he may not, in fact, need to breathe. He’s sighed before, certainly, but of course he would be able to, as he could speak.

“They spoke of the past, even days later, as though it was a distant dream. What knowledge our race had accumulated, the learning and magics of our peoples, lost completely. Lahabrea made attempts to rekindle that knowledge, reteach those magics. In the vain hope that aught of our people might be recalled, that if even their memories were lost to them, the dream of creation might live on.”

Creation? The dream of creation? What had their people – what had _Lahabrea _wanted to create? Zodiark, of course, but that had happened out of necessity. A last resort to stave off the destruction of their world; not exactly the accumulation of knowledge over time, to be passed down.

It’s a strange sound, the way Emet-Selch speaks these next words, not quite unlike the feeling of crystal cracking in your chest, “He’d lectured us, when we asked why. Claimed that in his teachings, the remnants of our people might further the noble art of creation, and eventually perhaps come to create a solution all their own.”

Low, low, low; his voice is low in your chest as he drags his words on like shattered glass against gravel.

“Know you what discoveries awaited us?”

No, but clearly, he is about to say. The forest sounds silent, a crushing, all-encompassing lack of noise that permeates the surroundings completely. It’s deafening, even the sound of the breaths that he might not be taking is drowned out by the anticipation.

“The wretched condition of our former brethren that plagues you to this day. We had found them by the colors of their souls, just as before; the remnants of our shattered friends and families. The ones that were left to us. We knew at once it was not as it should be. The color of a soul is… _unmistakable_,” There is something strange in his voice there. Something that lingers in the air, syllables nearly chiming out with all the clashing of a bell. “But the intensity, the power, the very _essence _of their beings, had been…”

And then, for whatever reason, Emet-Selch pauses. Drinking in the bright forest air in a short breath, as though it is a poison he is compelled to consume.

“We called their names out, waiting for them to answer. None of them remembered even that.” 

From the side of his eyes, you catch him glancing at you, before his lids close again, pale and dark on his shadowed face.

“Still, Lahabrea was not dissuaded. He thought if he could just _teach _them… if he could show them how to use our old magic, share our history and culture, the fragments of our friends might in time grow stronger, regain their lost power. Or at least they might grow to be something their past selves would have been proud of.”

That… was _not _like the Lahabrea that had possessed Thancred and caused the massacre at the Waking Sands. Nor the man who had manipulated Gaius van Baelsar to his own ends, setting the Ultima Weapon against you once, twice, and then fought you himself, mocking you and Hydaelyn until the moment of his defeat. Acknowledging your strength only upon the defeat that he knew would not end him.

Lying to you, telling you that killing him would kill Thancred as well. And now, through no fault of your own, Thancred had actually outlived the immortal Ascian. ‘So much for the glory of man’ – how fitting, then, that Lahabrea had died to a man he thought he could manipulate. Steeped in aether, in stolen power and the faith and prayers of hundreds of years; but a man nonetheless.

Then again, the beast tribes hadn’t figured out how to summon primals on their own, excepting the bizarre case of Susano.

Still, to hear this about him from someone else… Then again, Lahabrea was your enemy. Had always been your enemy. It was only Emet-Selch who had approached you with innocuous intentions; even Elidibus’s true colors had shown when he set the Warriors of Darkness upon you. Emet-Selch was already far more of an emissary than the white-robed Ascian, and he hadn’t even _tried _to tell you that ‘balance must be restored’ or ‘if you know, our people would be of one mind’.

Emet-Selch had merely spoken the truth – or at least his own version of it – and let you come to your own conclusions. ‘Now do you see why we yearn for the Great Rejoining?’ He’d _asked, _his voice raw with real emotion, real mournfulness.

Had Lahabrea, too, felt this…?

“Is that doubt I spy on your face, hero?” You look back and his eyes glimmer at you, a flicker of amusement on a face bowed from the sun. “Perhaps you think such a thing uncharacteristic of the evil Ascian who plagued you so?”

If that isn’t a loaded question, nothing could be. But there’s plenty to deflect it with.

“He hadn’t made a particularly compelling case for himself as a benevolent teacher when he was possessing my friend and trying to kill me in various ways, no. I’m sure the beast tribes would disagree, but,” The opportunity becomes clear in an instant, and you seize it; some sweet irony to be tasted in your retort, “As you’ve made so clear to me, much of history is really a matter of perspective.”

Laughing, Emet-Selch throws his head back, sunlight beating on his face, pale skin nearly glowing in the light. “Indeed it is. Take it from one who’s learned from eons of experience with the mortal races; in the end, the tale is always told by the victor. And so your Hydaelyn is a benevolent goddess without fault, and we are the villains who no naught of compassion, or sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice?” Enough of his self-pitying; that remark has earned him some disdain. “Yes, how _dearly _it must hurt you to have to sacrifice all those people on those other worlds. How much, I wonder, did Lahabrea sacrifice when he possessed my friend and fled into the void between worlds when I slew him?”

“More than you think, hero,” Emet-Selch’s answer, while chiding, is not nearly as spiteful as it was when he had spoken of Hydaelyn. “Lahabrea had staked much in that battle, hoping to bring about another Rejoining so soon after the last. As I had told you, possessing a mortal’s body is taxing; Lahabrea went from one hapless host to your witty, white-haired friend; it is no small task to subdue an individual’s soul from within their own body in the best of cases, and Lahabrea was forced to do so constantly.”

A note of – nostalgia? Amusement? – enters his voice as he continues, “I suppose it was only to be expected that his arrogance would be his undoing. To do battle with a mortal is one thing – to do battle with one of Her Blessed champions, in _Her _own realm, is another thing entirely. The Blade of Light which you used against him marked his soul, wounded him in ways he could not recover from; hence he was forced to cooperate with Igeyorhm instead of working alone.”

That may be so… However.

“You’re wrong either way.” That’s enough of him avoiding your gaze, glancing at you only when he felt like it; your hand finds purchase on his jaw, cupping it in a firm but gentle grip. “_You’ve _told your tale too, Ascian. Any of you could have told me this – _Lahabrea _could have told me this, all that time ago.”

Gold eyes burn holes into yours, glaring with a startling intensity, not unlike the overbearing Light that had haunted the sky.

“Ah, yes, that little conceit of mortality… for a moment there, I’d almost _forgotten._” Emet-Selch sneers out the word with no small amount of mockery, “And you forget, hero, that you are not the _first _Warrior of Light we Ascians have faced.”

A hand comes up to grip your wrist; his gloves had returned. The smooth fabric digs into your skin with the strength of his grip, but you don’t let go.

“You think we did not _try? _That we never did not try to spread the truth, remind the people – the _fragments, _the broken _husks _of the people we knew and loved, of who they were?” He tugs your hand on his jaw away from him, leaning in, enough to let you feel the breath of each word as he spoke.

“We tried. They ran from our true forms, they feared us; so we fashioned bodies like theirs to walk among them. They doubted us, so we offered them proof; as the sight of our powers, they feared us again. We tried to tell them, but our words fell deaf upon their ears, for another voice yet spoke to them, and unlike our god, unlike our _world, _**She** was whole.”

Your wrist almost hurts. It is not a painful grasp he has on you, nor a hard, squeezing one. But the bones of his fingers seem to dig into your flesh all the same, pressing the skin into bone like a silken brand. His eyes burning yellow, nearly feverish as his tone rose.

“There were, and there are yet some few who’ve chosen to heed our teachings. You have met several of them, even.” Emet-Selch should be smirking at you, now, he should be mocking you with the knowledge that these ‘mortals’ have taken up his cause and abandoned humankind. He is not.

“Do you know, hero, which one of us tried the hardest? Who ventured out to the people when the rest of us had withdrawn to scheme and plan out our solution to restore the world? The one of us who was the last to give up, the last to abandon the idea that the people who were once _our friends and family and compatriots – _the idea that they might be restored to their former selves, at least in some small part, and the new world might grow into a civilization worthy of our stewardship while we set about the task of restoring Him.”

Of course you don’t know. And Emet-Selch knows that, which means there’s nothing to do but wait for him to tell-

“_Lahabrea.”_

That… is not what you’d expected. But then, who _could _it have been? With those leading questions, Emet-Selch had to have been building up to someone you knew. But… of all possible people… Elidibus had been cordial, businesslike; Nabriales had seemed to want everything to be over with quickly, however malevolent he may have been; even Igeyorhm had seemed to have some unique insight in humanity.

Well, she’d thought she did. All that supposed planning she and Lahabrea had done, all the insults they hurled at the mortals they ‘manipulated’, only to fail and die because of that very mortal they claimed to be controlling. And with how Thordan had so effortlessly slain Lahabrea, and would surely have done so to Igeyorhm if you hadn’t gotten there first –

None of the Ascians knew people as well as they thought they did. But if Lahabrea had been the most wrong about what people were capable of, why had _he _been the last one to give up?

“Lahabrea always was a man of learning.” Emet-Selch yanks his head from your hands, turning to the side, and you let him. “And to be a man of learning; his greatest passion had been _teaching. _So he sought out his greatest pupils, and others; the minds that had been the brightest and the sharpest before the Sundering. He found them, and slowly, painstakingly, after years and years he established himself as their mentor and guide.”

Suddenly, you want a bit less to hear the rest of this story. You think you know where this is going and it does not end happily. No ending is ever a happy one.

“And do you know what? They _learned. _He discovered that they could be taught, that they could be shown the magics of creation, with a patient enough teacher. So he taught them, he lectured them in theory, he gathered them crystals and methods of providing energy which did not draw too much on their pitiful life forces. He taught them bits and pieces, and over enough time, one or two had regained the creative ability of perhaps a small child of our people.”

This story does not have a happy ending. Emet-Selch turns to you with a smirk, but his eyes are too vivid, a heavy gold among the pale gray shadows of his face. His voice does not tremble or break, and yet his sneer is without bite entirely.

“And then they died.” He says, and falls silent.

That can’t be all. He surely expects you to ask, you’re playing right into his hands, but you have to know. “What killed them?”

“Time.” Flat and heavy does the understanding fall upon you, but natural as though it should always have been plain. 

Of course the Ascians would not have immediately realized what mortality was. Until recently, they, along with everyone else, had legitimately believed there was no way at all for them to die.

“Lahabrea did not realize it, did not understand the changes that came to his students over the decades… and neither did any of the rest of us. None of them had regained any of their memories, but that meant naught to the stubborn old fool. They were his students, and he was their teacher. He poured his life and soul into teaching them, believing that they might bring about great theories and wisdom such as they had before the Sundering, that they had just as much promise as they always were. That, deep down, they were still the same people. But before they had time to even _regain _all the understanding that they’d lost since that day…”

Emet-Selch holds a hand out in front of himself, assuming a familiar position. The sound of the snap you see more than you hear.

“Dead. They were gone. Slain by time itself, the most implacable of foes. Even in the entirety of their mortal lifetimes, not a single one of them had learned all Lahabrea had to teach them.” His voice grew weary as his hand slowly lowered. “All he had _wanted _to teach them. Fine pupils all of them, he claimed. But there simply was not enough time in one mortal’s life. The knowledge Lahabrea possessed was vast, and the knowledge of our civilization that we collectively remembered among us was even more so. He would never have been able to teach them everything.”

For all that Emet-Selch had spoken distantly of his story, you hear _something _in his voice, breaking on the words as though they were fragments of glass caught in his throat. “Even if they _hadn’t _been mortal. ‘A scholar’s art is never done’, he would have preached to us. He could have spent his whole eternity teaching, and learning, and he’d never be finished. That wouldn’t have stopped him, mind you,” A sound comes form him that might have been a chuckle, “Nay, that would’ve been a reason to continue, Lahabrea would have said. He would have done it forever, and been satisfied beyond measure. Would that his students were the same.”

Only people with the Echo could… _become _Ascians, or whatever it was that Elidibus had implied so long ago. If Zenos could possess Shinryu, how much harder could it be to possess an ordinary human body? It would have just been a matter of knowing how. For anyone who had ‘the gift’.

Evidently, Lahabrea’s students hadn’t been among them.

“I suppose you could say he never _did _give up. Lahabrea had ever sought out more students, and as I hear he was a fine master to them, but since the realization of their mortality he had made certain to select only individuals of a particular persuasion.”

“The Echo, you mean.”

Leaning forward, Emet-Selch rests his arm on his knee, and his face on his hand, staring into the distance almost lazily. “Yes, yes, you’re very clever.”

“Thanks, I try. So… you decided to rejoin the words because you didn’t like that people were mortal?”

He makes a sound that might have been intended to be a laugh, but comes out more as a scoff, “And _you _do? I believe human death was the whole point of what you fought to prevent, yes? Can you honestly say you think everyone you know and love will be better off for their inevitable ends?”

“I’m fighting to prevent that.”

“No,” Emet-Selch laughs, “_I’m _fighting to prevent that. But in your world – be it by violence or illness, accident or age, they _will _die eventually.”

They would. It had already happened to some of them – Minfillia was gone, the original leader of the Scions would never return even if some part of her legacy persisted. Haurchefant had died protecting you. Papalymo had died protecting _everyone_. And even with Minfillia’s sacrifice, so much of the First had been lost.

So much has yet to be lost, and will be, if you fail.

“It’s better for them to die sooner rather than later, then?”

“What, because it _hurts _to see them die?” Acid coats his words, long and drawled with irony. “That is the truth, hero. This is the reality you live in, the world Hydaelyn created. If your friends die now, you’ll mourn them now, and it will be terrible and you will suffer. If they die tomorrow, you will mourn them tomorrow, and _oh, _how you will suffer. Be it a day or a year, or ten or a _hundred, _nothing will ever make it hurt any less.”

He lifts his other hand up, resting his head on both of his palms.

“Your friends put themselves in harm’s way.” Emet-Selch glances at you, meets your eyes from the corner of his for only a moment. “In their line of work, serving Her as they do, they accept that their lives are like to end early. And if they don’t, do you _really _believe you won’t mourn them as much if they die old? You really think you’ll be able to watch them age and wither and _die _and tell yourself it was a good thing as you bury a shell of a body that used to be someone you loved?”

It's unfair of him, to bring up death like this. His questions are biased at their very core, coming from a man who clearly despised mortality, who had already lost his home and people and failed to do anything at all to ameliorate it.

It’s unfair. Unfair.

“Of course it won’t be. But isn’t that all the more reason to give them all the time I can?” The truth is the truth and it is so; just thinking of the deaths of some of your friends, the people who had fought alongside you, fought for you, believed in you… you don’t want to think about it, but it’s as real as he claims. They will all die someday.

But the fact that their deaths will make you miserable no matter _when _they happen; that’s just a fact. It’s not a reason to forsake them. Emet-Selch has offered no solutions, only pointed out the faults of mortality, and mortality is their natural condition.

“For how long, then?” You can only see the side of his face, but his lips are twisting into something that might, from any other angle, resemble a smile. “How much time can you buy them, hero, before your own is spent? One such as you could do _so much more_. You could _be _so much more.”

All the elusive hints you’d had over the years about the power of the Echo; from Elidibus, to the Sahagin Elder you’d seen who had the powers of an Ascian, to Zenos’s impossible power over a primal whose strength rivaled Bahamut’s. There’s no doubt there _is _much and more you could learn, with the powers you had…

“But all I am now, I owe to Hydaelyn.” You say, and you watch shock and anger in equal measure flit across his face for but a heartbeat as his head whips back towards you. “Her Blessing kept me safe until I was strong enough to stand on my own, and as you said, She intervened on my behalf when I fought Lahabrea. She’s the reason that all of _this,_” You gesture to the Greatwood around you, “Still exists.”

Smiling sardonically, Emet-Selch says, “Indeed, indeed. You might even note that She is the reason it came to be in the first place. **_And._**”

He leans towards you, brows quirking, “She is responsible for every single death – _every _one of them that has come to be upon this world, your own, and all others. If it hadn’t been for Her_, _our people, our world would have been _whole_. None of these ephemeral mortal races would have come to be. None of these people fated to die would have ever been _born._”

“That’s an interesting way of pretending you didn’t kill everyone on those worlds you ‘Rejoined’.”

A scoff is all that warrants from him. “And _that _is an interesting way of setting aside the truth; that Hydaelyn is responsible for the deaths of all the mortals who came _before _then. The sundering of our people, none of whom deserved to be shattered so.”

“Neither did the people living on those worlds deserve to die.”

The angles on his face shift and sharpen as he moves, shadowing his cheeks in wicked lines. “You defend only with more accusations. When do the accusations end, hero? Which of us is expected to take responsibility for the misdeeds of the past? Why is _your _god the benevolent one, when all She has done is break the world into pieces? The deaths of all the mortals you hold dear can be traced back to Her, for without Her intervention you and yours would be as we were.”

“Without Her intervention we wouldn’t exist at all.” It’s strange, defending yourself like this. Defending Her. Most of the time Her enemies just tried to kill you. Some of them had tried to talk you to death, but never with such… engagement.

Maybe Lahabrea would have. He might have even been better at explaining it all. If he’d had even a sliver of respect for you, the slightest interest in making his story – ‘the truth’, as Emet-Selch would claim – known. Or whatever else it is that moves Emet-Selch to speak to you like this.

“I’m not saying that what She did was right. I can’t know that…” Emet-Selch’s judgement on Zodiark’s power could not be trusted; however, Hydaelyn never intended to split the world so. Or at least, no one thought She did. So it’s likely even _She _regretted that… “But all I have is my life right here and now. Passing blame and arguing about whether or not this _had _to happen doesn’t change my existence in this moment. And it doesn’t erase anyone else’s.”

“You call it _living, _do you? Struggling for every moment, measuring age by the years instead of the centuries? By the millennia? Even those who make it to the end of their pittance of a lifespan will have been terrorized by their mortality up until the very end. By their own struggles, or by the struggles of others.”

“We do call it living, yes,” You met his eyes, unaffected, “Because what else would we call it? You seem to think these are reasons to lay down and die. I won’t claim that it all makes it worth it, I won’t claim that we value life because we know our time is limited; if any of us _wanted _to die, we wouldn’t be fighting to save ourselves. And we’ll still feel that way, up until the very end. But what else is there for us to do, but act on our feelings? Fight for every second we can, for ourselves, and for others?”

Emet-Selch looks away. “Champion of Hydaelyn, indeed. She would say much the same.”

“There you go, now you’ve got Her attitude. She’s not such a mystery to you after all, then, is She?” Not like She is to _you, _Her _actual _Champion.

“She was never a mystery to me. Hydaelyn’s desires are not some strange unknowable things. Her compassion for mortals and desire to help them; that has always been what Hydaelyn worked towards. It is only how She chooses to go about it, how She speaks of it to others, that is the mystery.” He sighs. “Perhaps the others would not agree. Still, I suppose to know one’s enemy is not an entirely useless endeavor.”

“That’s the actor’s spirit!” You nudge his shoulder with yours, “See, I knew you would have Her down if you just tried.”

You see him laugh despite himself; either he is too tired to conceal his reaction, or he does not care to.

“Do you mean to provoke me, hero?” Though he does not look at you, the lilt of his voice has lightened. “You’ve only given me _ideas. _I could try impersonating Her sometime.”

The idea does bring a smile to your face despite yourself. It might not be impossible for an Ascian to put on a reasonable facsimile or illusion of Her, but… “Your take on Her earlier wasn’t so bad, but you certainly hadn’t been as diligent as you could have been. Your feelings are obvious, and I’d know the difference right away.”

“Not to _you, _obviously. That does make it all the easier, doesn’t it? None but you would know what She is _really _like.”

“Neither do you.”

“As I said, it would only make it easier to fool everyone else. I have already proven my unique insight, have I not?”

“You shared a lot more insight into Zodiark than you did Hydaelyn.”

“Mysterious, isn’t it? ‘Tis almost as though I engaged in the summoning of one, but not the other. Alas,” A theatric sigh that only brings a smile to your face, “Some secrets can never be known.”

You scoot closer, so that your bodies are touching. Pressing against him, demanding his attention. With great annoyance does Emet-Selch yield his gaze, facing you irately.

“Tell me more about your god,” You say, “And I’ll tell you about mine.”

“What do you imagine there is about Her that I need to know? I don’t _want _to hear about your god.”

“Then _I _don’t want to hear about _yours. _Am I making the right choice here, Emet-Selch?” It occurs to you that this is your first use of his name.

Emet-Selch looks at you for a moment, strangely, then gives a short laugh. Meeting your eyes, he only laughs again. “That’s exactly the sort of thing he would have said, you know. Lahabrea. He could be quite patronizing in his lesser moods.”

It had been remarkably condescending of you to say. Like a teacher scolding a child with an overbearing lesson, self-important and wholly aware of their own rightness.

“We all have our faults,” You opt to say instead, arching a brow meaningfully. “Or do you believe that denying knowledge is the right choice?”

“Our faults, hm? My, a specter of the past has materialized before me. Lahabrea, are you in there? Your taste is impeccable, but couldn’t you have possessed that annoying blonde man again?” His voice is rich with some kind of ironic amusement you can’t quite place.

Laughter bubbles out from you without your permission, and it does surprise you. Well, it isn’t _that _tasteless, Thancred had _said _he preferred Lahabrea. It’s hard not to start giggling as soon as you think it, so you try to continue the conversation.

“Would that really have been any better?” In perhaps the strangest turn of events in this conversation, Emet-Selch shares with you a knowing look. “Would you like having Lahabrea on this journey with us, pretending to be Thancred?”

“There’d be no end to his complaining,” Emet-Selch chuckles, throwing his head back and lifting his arms up. “‘These pitiful mortal creatures! How I long to abandon this wretched flesh and darken the lights of their souls unto oblivion!’ Then again,” A light flickers in his eyes, warm amber catching on the sun, “It might have been worth it merely for the sake of taunting him and watching him try to pretend to hate himself.”

“I take it you weren’t fond of him?” Your encounters with Nabriales and Elidibus, especially, linger in your mind. “Near every Ascian I meet seems to hold no small disdain for him.”

His eyes darken at once, strangely, a portion of his light amusement drained from him at your words.

“Lahabrea was arrogant, and brilliant. Such a combination does not lend itself well to popularity. I do not deny he was the target of much envy; yes, even within our ranks. Perhaps time had taken its toll on him, as well. After those years he spent among his students, Lahabrea was loath to take mortal form. Only once it was obvious how he was best suited to serve our purpose did he grudgingly assume the form of man. He was even less willing to retain it for any length of time, instead wasting away his energies materializing and possessing hapless mortals, discarding them at the first opportunity.”

How Lahabrea best served their purposes – they meant the primals, most likely. With what he’d said had happened after the Sundering, it made sense that Lahabrea was the best teacher among them, and perhaps he was, with the right motivation. For the moment, however, there’s far more to be learned from Emet-Selch himself.

Lahabrea had only taught you that Ascians were not to be trusted, and even that is turning out to be false.

“He must have changed greatly.”

A humorless laugh. “So have we all, and none for the better. But we must move forwards with our plans, for there is naught behind us but loss and despair, and naught ahead of us but endless grief.”

What can you say to that? Even if Emet-Selch wants to end this world, and so many others, what is there to say to one who has lost everything? To him, moving forward meant going back; going back meant changing things for the better. To him, idea of _the way the world should be_ was inexorably entwined with the way the world _was _in his time.

For Emet-Selch and his fellow Ascians, to think of improving the world, their minds naturally went to the way the world used to be. They could conceive of no other worthy pursuit. To say nothing of the tempering of their god, who, according to Hydaelyn, still longs to be made whole.

“Will you tell me, then, about this god your hopes had been entrusted to?” What would tempering sound like, coming from an Ascian? Did he even realize – no, he had to.

“Have I not told you all you need to know? What else is there you would ask?” He sounds genuinely interested in speaking of it, which is all the more damning. And yet you are caught in the trap of staring at the disaster, chasing it head on, no matter how distasteful it is to gaze upon.

“You’ve spoken highly of Him, certainly. But I know less of your god than I do of Garuda and any number of other primals – Hydaelyn included.”

He _tsks, _“What? Are you expecting me to offer up some condemnations? Surely you’ve understood by now where I stand.”

That may mean it is as you fear, and that he is aware of his tempering… and the very idea of it drives you forward. To hear from a mind controlled by another; brilliantly intelligent and in full awareness of the manipulation warping his will.

“I could praise Her all day, as surely as you seem to love praising Him, but that won’t get either of us anywhere, will it?” You cross your own arms, “Tell me what He was _like_; what He cared for, how He cared for it. Tell me how He treated you and spoke to you. Tell me truthfully, without the veneer of awe and reverence… if you can.”

You allow the note of challenge in your voice to ring clear. Let Emet-Selch think of it what he would.

The next noise you hear is the accompaniment of a feeling – his hand brushing against yours. Offering a cherry. Wordlessly you accept, lift it to your lips without breaking your gaze, as you watch him watch you eat.

“…We were not certain if it would work, you must understand.” Emet-Selch begins, speaking slowly, deliberately, as though choosing each word carefully. “The doom that had befallen our world had nearly consumed us, by the time our preparations were complete. Our world, our city, our _home, _was falling apart around us, in those very Final Days. Our very magics had betrayed us, and we had naught left to do other than entrust our fates and futures to this one last great act of magic.”

A city, you think, remembering the cave paintings of lovely blue, a city surrounded by fires and destruction.

A world that knew naught but peace and prosperity. If Emet-Selch is to be believed. The problem with calling the past perfect is that it is so very easy to forget things. When all one wishes to recall is pleasant memories, one naturally forgets the faults, the pain and troubles their self of that current time had lived through.

“We were uncertain. Our doom was before us, our world on the precipice of disaster, so many lives lost. And there we were prepared to work the greatest magic any had ever been called to cast, which we had spent the last scarce few weeks just barely conceptualizing it all, trying to understand how to work such a miracle.”

You notice his hand rising, slowly, between the two of you, cautiously reaching out. Choosing to remain still and let him continue, you allow it, lowering your guard as the worshipper before you spoke of his god.

“There was so much that could have gone wrong. _Everything _was at stake; our lives, our families, everyone we know and the entirety of the world, it could all be gone, with no hope for any future. We offered up our conviction and devotion, our very souls… and our work was rewarded.”

A sigh of release from his almost distracts you from the touch on your face. His hand gently settling on your cheek, cupping your jaw in his palm.

“We longed to create a will for our dying world; that it might cry out in defiance and make right its ongoing maladies, reaffirm its own existence. And He did.” His fingertips brush against your cheekbones. “He came to be, and reality was made anew, just as we had hoped. The sickness of our star, the terrible sound from beneath the earth at last fell silent.”

…Sound…? What kind of sound could have frightened an Ascian…?

What would it have to sound like? And how could such a thing possibly come to exist? From within the earth itself, even.

_“…the truth that lies at the heart of this star…” _Hydaelyn’s words to you were few, so you remember them, each and every one.

“What were His first words to you?”

Emet-Selch blinks, a twitch going through his hand on your cheek. Quickly his thumb makes a smooth swipe over your cheek, as though wiping away some imaginary tear.

“He told us,” Has his voice been so soft this whole time? So quiet? “_Thank you.”_

** _What?_ **

The shock must show on your face, because at once he pulls his hand away. The quick, short laugh he gives burns. It is like acid on the parts of your face he had touched, bereft of the tender warmth of his hands.

Zodiark had… thanked them?

A low, dark noise comes from the man beside you. “What? You think Him incapable of such simple pleasantries? Perhaps now you will tell me that primals are incapable of gratitude? I suppose you _would _know. You’ve summoned primals before, yes?” He nearly sneers, but you can practically see him recoiling in defensiveness.

Gratitude. A terrible connection is drawn in your mind. From a god who was the provider and protector of Emet-Selch and the Ascians, to the god who had protected and nurtured you and all mortal races with all She had.

The duality had always been there; dark and light, gods the both of them, _primals._ But Emet-Selch, in his hatefulness, had never wanted to compare the two, only deriding Hydaelyn as the product of fear, a being brought about solely to end Zodiark.

And Hydaelyn had only told you that Zodiark longed for power, and thusly She had banished Him.

It’s obvious now. After all this time, they’d been thinking of Zodiark the way you had thought of Hydaelyn. He had been their protector in their hour of need, and now He was the one in need, so they worked to restore Him. Even as you had gathered crystals for Her and Her Blessing, killed many and more, ended the dreams of others to make your will reality.

It’s not on the same scale, not at all. But…

If they’re tempered… what about _you? _

“What’s it like, being tempered?” The words fall from your lips without your thinking about it.

You could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed.

“What a thing to ask.” He says, humor infecting his voice; but dry and tired. Those shoulders as slack and low as ever they had been, hands limp on his lap. “Have you not met enough tempered souls in your lifetime, hero? Surely in your days slaying primals and doing your good and noble work you have come across many who had fallen under the thrall of their summoned god.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Indeed, I have not. How insightful of you to notice.” Emet-Selch closes his eyes, and says nothing more.

“…Does it… hurt?” Your voice comes out so small and quiet, weak, that you nearly want to silence yourself. “Are you angry?”

“Always. The sundering, the summoning of Hydaelyn – even the original calamity that befell my home so many years ago. I am always angry. I will always _be _angry,” A strength returns to him, the familiar cold hardness of crystal, the dark words any Ascian would say, “Until His return. Until the world is as it should be.”

“Does it hurt?”

Emet-Selch is silent.

You look down at your hands. “…Sorry.”

Silence.

“It was a foolish question,” You say.

The sigh you hear is tight, nearly a hiss beside you, controlled just enough to not be a growl. “Yes, yes, so very clever of you. Those who are tempered do not question their gods, cannot see fault with them. I cannot but place my faith in Him, for all that He’s done for us, and even broken as He is, I can see no way forward but by His grace. And I would never wish for anything else, nor stray from my course, under any circumstances.”

“But you can still resent it.” Your statement is free of judgement; a fact of reality, and not some failing of anyone in particular. “To be tempered is to prioritize your god above all else. It does not destroy your rational mind. You’re still completely aware of how much control you’ve lost, and even if you will never attempt to change it, even if you do not _want _to change it. You’re still aware of that and you can still dislike it. It won’t change how much you serve Him, but it’s still a part of who you are.”

Emet-Selch turns at you, and the eyes you meet are wide and bright until they narrow with suspicion. “And how do you know this?”

“It’s easy to love someone,” You bring your knees up to wrap your arms around them, leaning forward. “And to not want to love them. But you’ll help them all the same, do anything you can for them anyways, knowing it’s not the best it could be. But still, the ‘you’ who loves Zodiark will never _want _to become a version of yourself who does not love Zodiark, for then, you would not serve Him. You know He’ll be better off with your service, so you continue on as you are.”

The Ascian does not speak.

“I’m sorry,” You repeat, feeling his eyes on you and resting your face in your knees, “It was a stupid question. Of course it hurts.”

“Do not pity me.” He snarls, reaching out to grasp your arm, dragging you to meet his face. “You think to be one of His Chosen is some punishment, some burden to bear? Is that what you think of _Her?_”

You blink, taken aback, but not altogether surprised. Of course he’d defend Him.

“Yes,” You say, because for all the good you had done, it is no less your duty, your responsibility. One from which you have no escape, as surely as it would have been were you tempered.

The hand on your arm loosens but does not let go.

“You are not tempered.” Flatly, he says it, examining your eyes as though you are some research subject on display. As though all your soul is his to see. _“What color was her soul, again…?” _It probably is.

“I didn’t think I was, no.”

Releasing your arm, Emet-Selch tosses his head back and laughs. “Oh, but you did, didn’t you? That is why you asked.”

_And I was the one who told you, _he did not say, but your mind completes the thought for him. Hydaelyn lies silent, nearly nonexistent in your life, and it is an Ascian who tells you Her true nature. And whether or not She had tempered you. Whether or not you had any choice in the matter, in any of your battles and struggles. Or if you were just doing it because it was Her will.

“So you _do _like being tempered. You don’t see anything wrong with it at all?” The incredulity in your voice is beyond your ability to hide, and even if it wasn’t he’s unlikely to be fooled.

“_Like?” _His voice is filled with bitterness, any trace of amusement gone from his tone, “Have I not _told _you, hero? Were you listening for even a moment during all that talking? All He has done for us, all He wished for us, all He will do for us. How could I _not _love him?”

For a moment you do wonder. Emet-Selch is genuinely incredulous, it seems, past the annoyance and frustration. It makes sense that he does not see his devotion to Him as a bad thing, and why would he, if Zodiark is a benevolent deity who had protected and saved the world in its hour of need? Why would he resent it at all?

“I should have realized that, yes. I’m sorry. I’m sure you understand,” You give him a pointed look, “Given your history. The primals I am familiar with do naught but cause suffering, along with their worshippers.”

“And we Ascians are the harbingers of chaos, yes,” Emet-Selch drones, “And Hydaelyn is not a primal but some benevolent deity innate to the universe, I suppose.”

Tension lingers in the air, like heat building from the sunlight. The Ascian beside you stiff with denial, defensiveness, and not entirely unwarranted.

There must be something you can say. This can’t end here, not after all that you’d exchanged; there must be some means to continue this conversation, soften his ire.

Silent is the forest; the only answers left must be in your own mind. What to say to someone tempered, so devoted to his god he cannot be swayed, so completely convinced his god was good and just, and you had no way of refuting him…

You look down at your hands, listening to the sound of the silence, wondering if he would leave. If he has anything at all left to say.

“It was blue.” That’s all you could come up with – all you could think of.

Somehow the memory stands out, the _color. _Emet-Selch looks at you blankly, but his indifference condescension is better than his ire. You think back on it, more and more, on what you could see. What it was like.

“So very, very blue. In the aethereal sea, I mean. With Her.”

The Ascian shifts beside you. You suspect he’s frowning, but you don’t look over to check. It’s better to just look at your hands.

You don’t want to see him angry. Just words shouldn’t be able to make him so angry. He’s an Ascian, an immortal being, he’s seen millennia of lives and deaths in mortal time.

And unlike you, he already knows everything he needs to about Hydaelyn.

“The bluest of blues. Everywhere; all around me. It faded into midnight in the very recesses, but there were lighter streaks all around me, and the crystal itself pulsed with Light. Blue everywhere; all the same shade, just different levels of brightness. Points of light, or crystal, twinkling in the space around Her, around us.”

Does Emet-Selch even want to hear this? You’re not sure. He’s still there, and that’s enough. Maybe you should stop talking now.

You don’t stop talking now.

“It was _so _blue…” No, you couldn’t keep repeating yourself, you had to say something different, something about Her, “She was always… pleased, to see me, I suppose. Or… I think She was. We didn’t normally meet under good circumstances. Every time we did, She would praise me, tell me I was doing a good job, and to keep things up, give me some warning of distant danger.”

Is this babbling? It’s probably babbling. Emet-Selch is most likely going to leave any moment now. If he hadn’t already. It was you who’d asked about his god, you were the one who pried, he was the one who _talked _and you listened. Emet-Selch has not asked to hear this.

“What I mean is…” To give him an example of what you meant when you asked him to tell you of his god, the sort of thing you wanted to hear about Zodiark. “I want to know about _Him. _I don’t know anything about Him but what he’s done, and that’s all you’ll talk about. Hydaelyn was always kind, and gentle. She never got angry or disappointed; I don’t know if She even _could. _The worst I ever heard from Her was sorrow, so much sorrow.”

_“Seven times have I failed.”_ She’d told you. Recounted her failures, and asserted that She _could not fail again. _

“Sorrow, and determination. Even when She despaired of Her losses, She always tried to drive me forward, to help whatever way She could.” No, no, that isn’t it. You want to know what _He’s like, _as a person, if a primal could even be considered a person. “You don’t have to forgive Her, I know nothing I say will change what happened to you, but you know the Sundering was an accident. And even afterwards, She still cared about the people left in the world. In all the worlds.”

When no one in the Source even knew that other worlds _existed, _Hydaelyn had fought to prevent the Calamities. For the sake of the Source, and the worlds that would be destroyed. When the Warriors of Darkness came, She sent Minfillia for them, the last of Her strength. And She hadn’t even spoke to you since.

Your hands are clenching, lightly. Whether or not Emet-Selch notices; whether he even looks, you don’t know.

“_She _doesn’t think our lives are worthless. To Her, our mortal lives are precious enough to defend with all Her might.” Such is the devotion a primal returns to those who summon to it; although there had been no mortals when Hydaelyn was summoned. The devotion of a mother to her child, of a god to its people. Selfless, unconditional love, unending and unfaltering.

If this is what She is like, then it must be what Zodiark was like. No wonder the Ascians worshipped Him so.

“I would have done it all, even if She hadn’t asked, you know.” You aren’t tempered. You couldn’t be; you had the Echo. Just as Zodiark had not tempered the rest of the Ascians’ ancient people, Hydaelyn hadn’t tempered you. You hadn’t even really _been _near her, except in strange, fleeting out-of-body experiences.

“I would have fought the primals, the empire – _your _empire.” Beside you Emet-Selch releases a breath, soft and small, that might have been called a sigh. “I would have fought Lahabrea, and I might have died there without Her help, but I would have done it. Even if She’d never spoken to me, if I’d never gotten the Blessing.”

“Of course you would have.” Sounding through the silence after so long, his voice nearly cuts you to the core. “You would have fought for them even without the support of a god, even without prompting from a _higher power. _Fragmented though you may be, your deeds stand testament to your soul. Good and noble and true; filled with compassion for your fellow man, ready and willing to act upon it. A _hero _in every way.”

It's strange, to hear him say such things with such a strange respect that is not completely devoid of irony. As though he did indeed honor these traits, but his voice is empty of praise or condemnation. A statement of fact, just another truth of the world as inevitable as gravity.

Each word he speaks sounds like merely another line in some long-forgotten eulogy.

“_She _was like that too, is what I mean to say. That same selflessness and compassion, She has for everyone, every single person in all the worlds, lost or not. I don’t know how She can stand it, except maybe it’s because She’s a primal, because She’s not… a person… or, human. She was always so very calm and distant. I don’t think She was afraid of anyth-”

There’s a hand on your mouth, covering it, gently. But enough that you could not speak, with his fingers flush against your face. You stare at him in the corner of your eyes, but he’s looking away. You can’t see any of his face at all, only the back of his head.

His hand is warm on your face, soft. Skin uncalloused and smooth, befitting royalty. The pads of his fingertips just pressing into your cheek as if to grasp.

Reaching out to turn him towards you, your other hand going straight for his wrist, Emet-Selch beats you to it.

With practiced ease does his hand slide straight up, fingers brushing over your nose, freeing your mouth, but covering your eyes. Even when you shift to slide away, Emet-Selch moves to meet you, covering your eyes with both hands as he swings himself over to straddle you.

“What are you doing?” You say, now that you _can _speak.

His breath is soft and warm from above you, so he must be on his knees instead of sitting. Leaning down and forwards, exceptionally close.

“Use that immeasurable wit of yours and _figure it out, _hero.” Emet-Selch sounds as he always has; indifferent, slightly sarcastic, but there’s a note of… “Though I had assumed it clear, from my hands on your mouth.”

“Your hands _aren’t _on my mouth,” You point out, ire building in you along with the nagging suspicion he doesn’t mean to answer your questions.

What must you look like now? He might forget he doesn’t have his gloves on. Against your skin his fingers would look like the purest of whites, spread across dark skin, brushing against pale hair; the very opposite of himself. His hands a white mask, a blindfold on a shadowed face.

“Keep using that tone and I might just move them.”

“Move them, then!” What is his _problem? _Is there something he doesn’t want you to see? A perfect liar, a perfect _actor _such as him; what must he hide from you? “At least then I’d be able to see!”

Perhaps it’s some game. To keep you guessing, wondering.

Close – he’s unbearably close, you can feel his body heat, radiating from his skin. You just can’t see it.

His sigh is one of remorse and relief all at once. A breath you hadn’t known he has been holding.

“You can’t see.” He says, almost to himself, the words soft on your lips.

“Obviously!”

You can _hear _Emet-Selch smile.

And then you can feel –

You can _feel – _

Smoother than anything imaginable, glossy and soft, the lips touch to your own. They _are _smiling, until they’re not, until you feel them move to press gently on your own.

Shocked, you open your mouth to speak, but that only allows a tongue to slip in. Slick and wicked, the muscle darts into your mouth, resting easily against your own. Expertly applying pressure, twisting and writhing until you’ve joined in the dance, tasting the fresh ripeness of the cherries in his mouth.

Sweet, an unmistakable fruitiness blossoms in your mouth, in your shared kiss.

Over and over he presses kiss after kiss into you. You open your mouth to speak between each one, to ask the obvious question, and every time he descends back onto you.

Brushing against your hair, his fingers never stray, blocking your vision throughout the entirety of it. He angles your face upwards in a mockery of height he does not have on you, using his position to lavish you from above.

Why is he doing this. Why.

You could push him away. You’re stronger than him, at least physically. Emet-Selch knows this. He wouldn’t put up much resistance, if any at all. There wouldn’t be any point to it. There isn’t any point to it _now_. Why is he doing this?

Pushing him away would make him stop. He might even disappear, most likely never to try again after such a rejection. One such as him did not want for willing lovers, and certainly did not deign to pursue the unwilling. Not when there are other things he wishes to have from you.

…What else? What else could he want? It’s hard to tell, hard to think. Your face is hot, growing hotter, even with his cool hands over your eyes.

You can’t pull back; he’s pressed you flush against the tree and to move forward would only push your bodies together. To push him away would end this – this –

Whatever this is, why he’s doing it, you don’t know. But his lips feel so good, he tastes good, his tongue swirls and twists against yours and it’s _fun, _his hands are nice and cool on your face and it’s burning up.

Before you know it your breaths are short and sharp when you part, when he sees fit to pull away only to return once more. You’re blind, unseeing, trapped in darkness while he kisses and parts with you at his pleasure. Why? Why are you letting this happen?

If you ask him directly you’ll receive naught but deflection. There’s no point in it, no point in ending this little delight that’s fallen upon you, so why don’t you just accept it and-

“Do you hate Her?”

It’s all wishful thinking. As pleasant as this is, _you have to know. _It’s killing you already and it’s happening just now. There’s no telling what you’d be willing to do to find out later on, tomorrow, a year or so from now.

It works – or it doesn’t work, in either case, he would stop kissing you – and the heat of his face near yours dissipates. He doesn’t drop his hands from your eyes.

“Is that why you stopped me while I was talking?” You should probably stop. “Because you hate Her, and you don’t want to hear about Her? You could have said so, you know. I would have understood.”

You never knew when to stop.

“What do you expect me to say? That I _don’t _hate her?” Emet-Selch’s voice comes to you in the darkness, with the veil of his hands over your eyes, a cool, distracting barrier between yourself and reality.

You feel his hands stiffen on your face, grow tense and near clawlike in their hold. Kisses fresh on your lips, a most precious diversion from everything about him you’d rather forget.

“What are you hoping for? That **I**, one of His greatest champions, would have aught to say of Hydaelyn but derision? She sundered the world, sundered _everyone_**.**” The visceral intensity of his words reminds you of when you first met. In the Crystarium, where he bemoaned your ruining his plans. Ever the Ascian, longing for his rejoining. **“**Of course I hate Her. _Of course _I do.”

“…I understand.” He’d explained it all to you, after all. How foolish he must think you, asking this after all he’d said. “It was a stupid question. Sorr-”

“Stop!” His hands jerk against your face, as though he means to move them, but then thought better of it. More and more they press into your skin. If he left bruises that wouldn’t be easy to explain, but they would be hard to see.

“Stop, why? You’re mad that I asked, so I’m apologizing.”

“I don’t want your apology.”

“Then what do you want? What do I have to do to make it better? I didn’t mean to make you angry, really. I know you’ve been indulging me and-”

“**Stop.”**

His voice sounds like cracking glass, like stone being dragged against stone, each surface rigid and inflexible, putting the other part under great strain and pressure. His hands nearly dig into your face, tensing; and then they go lax, steady and gentle in their hold again. When his thumb twitches against the side of your cheek you realize he is – is he? –

Trembling –

It’s a shame you don’t know when to stop.

“No, I won’t. Tell me what I have to do to appease your anger.”

“It’s not you.” You nearly jump at the closeness of it; a whisper by your ear. You can’t feel his body heat; Emet-Selch is as cold as death for all you knew. “I’m not angry at you. It’s not you, it’s never you. So stop.”

You don’t have anything to say to that; you don’t _know _what to say.

“Cease your _incessant _whining. Really. I can’t believe you’re like this, even.” Suddenly he presses the side of his face into yours, and you nearly shiver at the chill. “Whatever god you may serve, there is no denying the person you are right here and now. A good person; a curious person. Wise, at a stretch. And dare I say… not entirely unpleasant company.”

The grudging respect in his voice has you giggle, no matter how serious he seems. He doesn’t seem to mind in the least. If you could see anything but this darkness, you might even say he’s smiling.

“You are a hero, good and true. I-”

“What do you want?” You repeat yourself unthinkingly, a sudden burst of desire urging you forward.

Ascians only cared about their god. They had never shown any concern for anything outside their precious Ardor, their Rejoinings. Emet-Selch is the very first you’d seen of them speaking about anything but that, and even still, his past and his god are intimately linked. One served the purpose of the other, though it seems not to be in the direction you’d always suspected.

Those who were tempered rarely distinguished between the good of their primal and the good of their people. Emet-Selch is no exception, but his longing for his lost home does not seem to have waned in the slightest. There seems to be so much _more, _there, a person behind the indifferent desire to end this world and cause disasters on another.

Before he can tell you about The Great Rejoining, the return of his Glorious Zodiark – who by all accounts might not have been any worse than Hydaelyn Herself – you clarify yourself.

“What do you _want,_” You put a hand on his own, feeling the fingers that covered your eyes. “Not as an Ascian, not for your lost home. What do you… what would make you happy to see, right here and now?”

“A smile, perhaps.”

When his words hit you, it sounds like… something. Something not so like him. Blasé, disconnected, but... it’s impossible to tell if he’s serious or if he’s speaking in jest, you just – there’s no read on it, you don’t know what to think at all.

“What…?” You can’t smile on command, or at least, you can’t just give him a real smile, if that’s – that has to be what he meant, doesn’t it? What else could he mean, saying that?

“You asked, I answered. Your turn, hero.” He says, at last pulling his hands from your eyes.

The sudden light is, of course, blinding; you blink slowly, hesitant, as it bears down on you.

“My turn for what?”

You only catch a glimpse before you need to close your eyes again, rubbing at them. This insufferable _glare. _Still, it had been unmistakable – Emet-Selch is smirking down at you, haughty and amused as he normally is.

“To tell _me. _What do you want – not as a hero, not as Her Champion, but as yourself, here and now. Can’t answer your own question?” His eyes are heavy as gold, staring down on you.

Right here and now…? You have to think for a moment, looking down at your hands, and to the side. Vision catching on an object beside you.

“Would you come back with more cherries?”

“Come now, hero,” Emet-Selch takes your chin and tilts you to meet his gaze directly. “Doesn't that strike you as a bit gluttonous? And so trivial, besides. You wouldn't want to offend me by asking for something so easily obtained?"

He voice is gentle but he is teasing. Something that’s not quite a smile dancing in his eyes. As though he hadn't asked for a smile, himself.

“Will you come back, then?” You find yourself saying, and suddenly his fingers seems so very very cool on your skin, hyperawareness sparking at each point of contact between him and you. “Just come back to talk to me…? Like this… I liked talking to you, today.”

Your words fail you, but even stumbling you do not stop. You want him to understand this. He needs to know.

“Not about!” Your voice rises as you see him about to speak. “We don’t have to talk about Hydaelyn, or the Rejoining or anything. I just – maybe about your home, if you want. But if you don’t… I still don’t mind. I would be happy to-”

He cuts you off with another kiss, this time, a hand on either of your cheeks.

They quickly rise up to bury themselves in your hair, pale fingers threading through bone-white locks. It’s all the encouragement you need to grasp at his hair in return, grasping at wisps of faded violet, impossibly soft in your hands. Smoother against your skin than the finest of silk, nearly slippery in your hold.

It's so perfect and lovely, it feels like heaven in your fingers. You never want to let it go.

But you must. The kiss ends as he says the words against your lips, “As you wish, hero.”

There’s something in those eyes you can’t name… but there is still something you think you _can._

Not quite happiness, but something approaching it. A warmth, like gold gleaming at you from a pale, shadowed face. That’s when you realize you’re smiling.

Emet-Selch parts from you, hands releasing, dissolving into purple swirls of aether flitting to a great black void, disappearing in an instant. As though he had never been there.

The sounds of the forest seem ever louder in his absence.

You think and think about it. And really… it… only seems more and more strange. For him to have spent all this time talking to you, answering your questions, joking around with you, even.

Your own words come back to haunt you.

There is nothing you stand to lose by engaging with Emet-Selch; Ascians are your enemies by default, so to have him speaking to you and not manipulating people is a win already. Every moment he spends occupied speaking to you is a moment he could have spent actually doing his work.

Yes; there’s nothing for you to lose, here.

…Which means there’s nothing for Emet-Selch to gain.

He had mentioned foregoing the option to side with Vauthry and overrun you and the Crystarium; that, Emet-Selch could certainly have done. But with every Lightwarden you slew, Vauthry’s forces grew weaker, and you gained more allies. And Emet-Selch had simply watched it happen, and that avenue was lost to him now.

Perhaps he believed he could fight you in person, but he’d mentioned knowing what became of Lahabrea –

Moreover, if the Light so terribly hindered him, he would need to fight you in a place of darkness. A place the Light did not touch; his own realm and not the First. Spending time with you wouldn’t change that.

At the back of your mind, there is the obvious answer. He thought he could convert you, sway you to his cause. Unlikely at best, but even in that remote possibility – that would _still _be a win for you. Because you would have _decided _to support him, and in such a case –

You blink.

In such a case, no one would be able to defeat you.

If you willed it… you were the very last person to speak to Hydaelyn, the only one in the world who had Her Blessing; the Champion She had relied upon for near everything. If _you _decided Emet-Selch’s cause – the _Ascian’s _cause, was worth your efforts…

Not only would Hydaelyn have gained you as an enemy – She would have lost Her greatest ally. The Scions would never recover. The last you had spoken to Hydaelyn She had sounded _desperate _to avert another Calamity; that one more might tip some wretched invisible balance no one ever cared to mention to you, not even Emet-Selch.

An instant win condition –

No. There could be no siding with the Ascians. Even if they were in the right – _which was obviously not true – _they were clearly tempered.

…For all it is impossible, for all you maintain to others that it cannot be done and that there is no use trying – and for the most part, there _isn’t – _

There was one case of a primal’s thrall being broken. Just one.

Granted, Louisoix at that point was not an ordinary person; a memory, perhaps? An echo of a primal once summoned and a ghost of the past all at once.

But neither were the Ascians normal people. And Louisoix had overcome Bahamut’s control all the same, in the very end. It had happened…

…But Bahamut had relinquished his control of Louisoix, who had already been defeated.

_“He told us, ‘Thank you’.”_

Perhaps you _have _been unfair.

It is true that the Ascians have caused untold pain and suffering. World after world destroyed, countless lives lost.

But as Hydaelyn lies silent, it would not be too fantastical an assumption to think that Zodiark cannot speak, either. He could not control what the Ascians did, just as Ramuh. And Zodiark had not tempered the rest of the Ascians’ people – either because He was unable to, them having the Echo, or because He was able to control Himself, as Hydaelyn was. He _couldn’t _have tempered them, because otherwise they would never have summoned Hydaelyn.

It's possible Zodiark would willingly undo what His presence had done to them, were He in any position to do so. Especially if He was as good a person – primal? – as the Ascians believed. But the Ascians were a part of the problem.

Summoning a primal, you knew all too well, required much of the summoner. A great desperation, longing, an absolute devotion and determination to their goal… all these things and more, the Ascians must have felt, trying with all they were to avert the disaster befalling their world. It’s no wonder they were swept up in his thrall, but still.

Normal people caught up in the thrall of primals did not reminisce. They did not mourn their fallen or praise their past; they thought of naught but their gods and how best to serve them. However great Zodiark’s sway is upon him, Emet-Selch is not consumed by it. Not entirely.

You sit there a while, eyeing the empty bowl. Thinking much more than you are used to needing to think. Eventually, you do get up, picking up the bowl to take with you.

It’s a regular ceramic thing, heavy and engraved. Fancy. The sort of thing an Emperor would use. You’ll return it, when you see him again.

You know you will.

But still, the thought struck you, unbidden, however you had tried to hide it.

_Hydaelyn had never thanked you._

He looks as though the world has moved beneath him. Running his eyes over and over you as though he has never seen you before, safe and faraway. Out of sight completely.

It made sense that the mortals saw Hydaelyn as he had seen Zodiark. As his people had seen Zodiark – before Hydaelyn, anyways.

A savoir mighty and magnificent – a doting, dedicated parent – a god whose love for them was unbounded, unending, and all-consuming. How could he not return it? How could _you _not return it?

When exactly, Emet-Selch thought to himself, gazing upon you from a distance in his ‘Shadowy Vigil’, when exactly had _you _become the one leading _him _around? Asking such leading questions, saying such things. Apologizing. Like that. Like you – like the person you had been – like the person your _soul looked like – _

Ah. This is pointless. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He could be a blind as you pitiful mortals to the color of your soul, and still this would have come to pass, he suspects. You, the Warrior of Light, the hero of the Source and Her beloved and –

_“Plays… that have actors, yes?” “Am I making the right choice here, Emet-Selch?” “**She** doesn’t think our lives are worthless.”_

-And the person who smiled at him. Who spoke to him and listened to his each and every word, heeded him with care even though he was – is – your so-called enemy. You who reached out to him, tried to understand him. Wanted to hear what he had to say.

_“Wil you come back, then?”_

You still want to hear what he has to say. All of it. It’s enough to make the heart in his chest skip a beat, it really is. He’s spent too long in these bodies, this pitiful mortal flesh. But then, you had spent this entire mortal life of yours in one. And the feel of your lips on his own lingers in his memory as surely as if…

_“You’re the naïve one.”_

What _is _he going to do with you? This cannot end well. The unease worries through him, and it doesn’t stop. Because you’re not who you were before, but neither is he. Neither is anyone. But however he has changed, he is still Hades, and so you must still be yourself.

After all this time. After everything that had happened. With a _soul _such as that –

You’re mortal, still. And it makes no difference to his eyes, to his senses, he can feel the pull with your every word and gesture, even now he longs to return to your side. To the side of a _mortal._ How Hydaelyn loved them so dearly. How dearly She must love you.

Mayhap as dearly as He loved him. **_Hydaelyn…_**

That had been the hardest lie of his life. You’re just full of firsts for him, aren’t you? It would make him smile, if everything else hadn’t made him frown. At this rate he’s about to turn into his grandson.

The thought is quashed quickly enough, for he is a master manipulator, his loyalty is beyond questioning, but for a moment it had been there –

_Who was he lying to?_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank goodness I'm finished with this. The whole thing started when we went to the supermarket and got some Rainier Cherries (they are the BEST kind of cherries, if you've never had them, I strongly recommend you try them before summer is over). Now I can start on the 10 new things I just started the other day, haha. Still haven't started the longfic.
> 
> I'd really, really love to hear your thoughts on this, especially about whether or not the WoL and Emet-Selch here seemed to have actual chemistry. I have such a hard time telling whether I've made a conversation sufficiently... shippy. And for this particular piece I had a lot of fun going into some of the lore stuff, but I'm also nervous I might have been kind of heavy-handed with how I have Emet-Selch and the WoL go through some realizations about Zodiark/Hydaelyn/etc, so I'd love to hear about how that came across!
> 
> Also, a quick note, if you're going to talk about lore in the comments, remember to stay respectful and kind. Each of our experiences with the story is unique, and I, like many of you, will treasure Shadowbringers and the memory of my playthrough of it for rest of my life, so please don't devalue these experiences and talk down to anyone about their interpretation of the story.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, I have spent far too much time recently obsessing over this fic, but I've also thoroughly enjoyed it and I am glad to have so much to write once again! :D


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